Police services board discusses unsanctioned street parties

The issue of how to address unsanctioned street parties has been discussed for several years and talks continued this week.

The Waterloo Regional Police Services Board was updated on the progress of an internal working group, which has been tasked with developing a comprehensive plan to get the parties under control and help curb the ballooning costs of policing these events.

Since 2020, the region payed over $1 million for police, paramedic service and fire to respond to the events.

The update comes two months ahead of St. Patrick’s Day which typically sees large crowds gather around Ezra and Marshall streets in Waterloo.

In 2020, the City of Waterloo created a Large Street Gathering Taskforce and information gathered by that taskforce has been informing the work underway.

“One of the first steps that we did in advancing some of this work was to reach out to the City of Waterloo, really seeing them as the municipal government lead for this work,” Jen Davis, Deputy Chief of Neighbourhood Policing and Investigations, said. “We’ve been working in partnership with them on exploring potential methods to reduce size and risks associated with the events.”

One of the main strategies being developed, according to Davis, is a multi-faceted, comprehensive communications plan that would target stakeholders like police, the city, other first responders and the universities.

The working group has also reached out to other communities with large universities to find out how they have responded to similar issues, something Police Services Board Vice Chair, Karen Redman said she’s a big fan of.

“It’s not unique to the Region of Waterloo. I look at the scan and it’s Kingston, Hamilton, London. We know any city that hosts a large university is going through this so I’m all about finding new ideas.”

No final plans were revealed and the report says future collaboration is required with local stakeholders in 2025.